The Boy Who Taught the Sages

Long after, there came a terrible drought that lasted twelve years. The great sages, tormented by hunger, scattered in every direction to find food. When Sārasvata, the son of Dadhīca and the Sarasvatī, saw them fleeing, he too meant to go. But the Sarasvatī said to him, Do not go from here, my son. I will always give you food. Stay here. So he stayed, and offered water to the ancestors and the gods, and ate, and kept himself alive, and kept the Vedas.

When the drought was over, the sages met and asked one another about their study of the Veda, and found that in their hunger and wandering they had all lost the Vedas. Not one of them could remember. Then one of them came upon Sārasvata, shining, reciting the Veda alone in an empty place, and went and told the others. They all came together and said to him, Teach us. Become my pupils as the rule requires, he said. You are only a boy, said the sages.

My dharma must not be lost, he answered. When one teaches against dharma, or learns against dharma, both soon perish, or become enemies. The seers did not make greatness depend on years, or grey hair, or wealth, or kin. The one who has learned the Veda is great among us.

When the sages heard this, they became his pupils as the rule requires, and learned the Vedas again from him, and took up their dharma again. Sixty thousand sages became the pupils of Sārasvata so that they might recite the Veda, and each of them brought a handful of darbha grass for the seat of the young brahmin seer, and though he was a boy, they did as he bade them.